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Senior UTSA guard Devon Agusi, fouling out in the second half, led all scorers with 20 points.

Turnovers completely turned the game in Arkansas’ favor. The Razorbacks achieved their 62-35 first half by turning the Roadrunners over 15 times and committing just two.

For the game, Arkansas committed just seven turnovers to the Roadrunners’ 28.

“What a first-half performance,” Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson said. “Ky Madden got us off to a really good start and I can’t say enough about us sharing the basketball. And the turnovers we converted, that shows me how active we were. Hats off to Brooks Thompson (the UTSA coach), his kids didn’t quit in the second half. They played hard and kept getting to the free-throw line.”

Anderson said the opening defense to offense score from guard Fred Gulley to Madden set the game’s tone.

“Our defense, the first play of the game, Fred deflects the ball and I look up and we’re scoring at the basket,” Anderson said. “It was a triggered by our defense. We did some good things in transition. We did some not-so-good things in transition. But overall, when you play that many guys and only have seven turnovers, that tells you our guys are understanding about valuing the basketball. Taking care of the basketball. We want to speed other people up. … We had 25 deflections at halftime. So that tells me we were very active.”

Active defensively, and unselfish offensively.

“I can’t say enough about us sharing the basketball,” Anderson said. “I think we had 15 assists in the first half, that’s moving the basketball. We had some tremendous fast-break opportunities, and guys came off the bench and gave us good minutes.”

Anderson had kind comments for Portis, the 6-10 McDonald’s All-American out of Little Rock Hall.

“You look at it and he was almost perfect. He missed one free throw,” he said. “I mean he rebounded the basketball. In 23 minutes – three assists and two blocked shots. He was active tonight. He is playing some quality minutes for us. He has a big-time motor, energy and he’s got a great feel for the game.

“He’ll be the first to say that ‘my teammates did a great job of getting me the ball in the right position,’ but he is active, he is running, he is in the passing lane. Can you imagine a 6-10 guy out there on the wing deflecting passes. He’s not done it only once. He has done it two or three times this year,” Anderson added. “That tells me he is really picking up on things even quicker than I anticipated.”